


Toy Soldiers

by LuthienLuinwe



Category: X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men Evolution
Genre: Child Soldiers, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Introspection, Post Mutant Exposure, Scott Summers Needs A Hug, Scott-Centric, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 11:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24969205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuthienLuinwe/pseuds/LuthienLuinwe
Summary: Scott has a standing appointment with Bayville High's counselor. In a session after mutants are exposed, Scott is forced to confront some uncomfortable truths.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45





	Toy Soldiers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thrakaboom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thrakaboom/gifts).



> Hello, everyone! This fic is for the incredible thrakaboom, who wanted to see Scott meeting with Bayville's counselor to discuss the on-goings at the Xavier Institute.
> 
> None of this would have been possible without him!

Secrets were like bullets in a gun. Once they were out, there was no getting them back in. Some secrets were little. Things like what you got your best friend for Christmas or hiding that C you got on your chem test. And then some secrets were big. Explosive little things that liked to take you and everyone else down with it.

The mutant secret was like that, Scott figured. It was out and there was no putting it back in and now all that was left to do was to sit and watch the collateral damage unfold.

At least Mr. Smith didn’t seem to care. Though, when someone made a career out of dealing with teenagers half as messed up as Scott was, this was probably just another day on the job for him. 

Scott had a standing appointment. Every Monday during third period he got pulled out of cadet teaching and into the office to talk about all the things that were wrong in his life. He wasn’t the only one that got pulled. Alvers had been taken aside once or twice, same with Maximoff, though they’d gotten by with a ‘we’ll keep an eye on things’ and little else.

Scott knew the drill by now, though. He’d been doing this since he was a freshman. Come in, take a seat, stare at each other for three or four minutes until it got so awkward that someone (usually Scott) started talking.

“How are we today, Mr. Summers?” Mr. Smith asked, leaning forward on his desk. Scott shrugged and fought the urge to stare up at the ceiling. “Classes going okay?” he nodded. “Social life okay after everything that happened?”

Scott sighed and wrapped his arms around himself. Because that was the kicker, wasn’t it? The mutant bullet had been fired and hit humanity square in the chest, and there was no way in hell it was ever getting shoved back inside the secrecy gun. “It’s fine,” he lied, just like he always did. Everything was always fine. He was always fine. Because someone always had to be.

“So we’ve never really talked about…” Mr. Smith trailed off, trying to dance around the elephant in the room. 

“Being a mutant?” Scott finished for him, and the older man nodded. “It’s not a bad word.”

“Of course not,” Smith agreed, and Scott watched as he wrote something down in a manila file on his desk. “It’s just new to all of us.”

“Right,” Scott bit his lower lip and glanced out the window. Of all the places to position the counseling office, they couldn’t have picked somewhere nicer than the student parking lot? Nothing said ‘helps to heal’ like dinged up cars and the occasional slashed tire.

“So Xavier’s school…” Smith started and Scott tilted his head to look at him. All their years of doing this and they’d never really talked about the Institute. As far as anyone at Bayville was concerned, Xavier was taking in academically gifted kids who wouldn’t have otherwise had the resources to get what they needed. 

But now the dirty little secret was out. 

Xavier’s Institute for Gifted Youngsters was chock full of mutants. Not to mention no one ever really knew what went on inside those walls.

“What about it?”

“Can you tell me a bit about your life there?”   


“Do I have to?”

“You don’t have to talk about anything you’re not comfortable with,” Smith assured, and Scott nodded. “We talked about that your first day in here four years ago.” They had, he remembered. He’d been a scared kid going into a new school after a particularly nasty junior high experience and within a week he’d been referred to the counseling office. 

“Yeah, whatever,” Scott sighed and stared back up at the ceiling. He knew Mr. Smith meant well. He always did. But like he’d said, the mutant thing was new to just about everyone and it hadn't exactly come out in the pretty, peaceful way Xavier had hoped that it might. 

But then again, when had fortune ever favored them?   


A silence hung between them, and Scott tried to ignore the tension in the room. The same kind of tension that happened whenever he and Maximoff accidentally made eye contact in the resource room during a test. The same kind of tension whenever he knew Logan made a bad call but wasn’t sure he could say anything about it.

Smith wouldn’t break the silence. He never did. It was up to the person seeking help, he always said. But was it really seeking help when Scott was mandated to be here? He wasn’t so sure. But talking about anything was bound to be better than sitting in silence for the next half hour, right? “I’m not…” he started, trailed off, and tried to gather his thoughts. “I’m not like Bobby or Kitty or whoever,” he settled on. “I don’t get to turn it off and back on whenever I want.” He took a shaky breath and tried to ignore the ugly feeling in the pit of his stomach, the green-eyed monster he didn’t like to talk about and preferred to pretend he didn’t have. “If it weren’t for the professor, who knows where I’d be.”  _ Probably dead in a ditch somewhere. _

“He’s a very important person to you,” Smith nodded and folded his hands on his desk.

Scott nodded and ran a hand through his hair. ‘Important’ didn’t begin to cover it. Xavier had been the first person to make him feel normal. Like he wasn’t some sort of freak that needed to be locked away from the world for his own good and for everyone else’s. Xavier had been the one to help him gain some semblance of control over his life. So why was that so hard to put into words now? 

“You mentioned you have a little brother,” Smith spoke, and Scott snapped back to attention. Alex was always more than a little bit of a sore subject.  _ Next year, bro.  _ “But he’s not at the Institute?”

“He has other things on his mind,” Scott said quickly.  _ It’s just not my thing, okay Scott? I wanna go out and have fun, and I can’t do that there.  _ “Plus his parents are in Hawaii.”  _ His parents. Not ours. _

“But others at the Institute have family elsewhere?”

“It’s just different, okay?” An edge had sneaked its way into his voice, and he hated himself for it. “Alex is happy where he is.”

“Are you?”

“Yeah,” Scott responded, wrapping his arms tightly around himself and rocking slightly. He was happy at the Institute for sure. Or at least happier than he’d been before, though that wasn’t a particularly high bar to reach. And besides. Happy? Happier? They were the same thing, right? “Xavier’s a good man.”

Smith frowned. “I never said he wasn’t.”

“I know,” Scott snapped, glaring at the man from behind his shades. “But..”

“But what?” Smith pressed.

Scott felt his blood boil. 

“But nothing!” Scott shook his head. “Without him, we’d all be out of control, taking ourselves and God-only-knows who else down with us.” He exhaled harshly and pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to calm himself down. Getting worked up never solved anything. Never had. Never would.

And besides? Wasn’t it all worth it in the end? Every Danger Room session, every run with Logan, every survival training session… It was to make them  _ better _ . To get control over powers that didn’t make sense half the time. “Besides,” he said once he’d managed to regain control over his breathing. “We’re the good guys.”  _ Or at least we’re supposed to be. _

“I never said you weren’t.”

Scott shook his head and stared back at the window even though nothing had changed in the forty minutes he’d been sitting here. Forty down. Fifteen to go. But who was counting, right? “Look, I know what everyone thinks about us, okay?” 

“And what’s that?” Smith leaned forward. Scott gritted his teeth and fought the urge to say something snappy. 

It was so much easier to deflect.

“They think we’re like. Some sort of army or whatever.” And… maybe they were. Maybe that was all they’d ever been. But Scott didn’t want to think about that because it was easier not to. And besides. They weren’t the ones who wanted to go after the regular humans. No. They’d have to talk to Mystique or Magneto if they wanted answers on that front. 

God knew it was never supposed to be this complicated.

“He’s lied to us before,” Scott said, mouth working faster than his brain. It had been over a year, and it still stung knowing that Xavier had  _ known  _ Darkholme was Mystique and hadn't said a thing about it. It had stung that Xavier had kept Magneto a secret for so long.

How were they supposed to protect themselves if they didn’t know what they were up against?

What else was he hiding?

_ We’re the good guys, remember? _

Sometimes, more often than he’d ever own up to, he couldn’t help but wonder what things would have been like if he and Alex had stayed with Magneto back on Asteroid M. 

“He trains us so we can stay safe,” he continued after another tense silence. “So we can stay safe and help people who need it.” Like the superheroes in comic books he and Alex bought when they had some spare change. Wasn’t that what every kid ever wanted to be?

Smith frowned and scribbled something Scott couldn’t decipher into his file before setting the pen down, glancing back up at him. “Scott?” 

“What?”

“Do you feel safe at home?”

Scott rolled his eyes and stared up at the drop ceiling. Now wasn’t that a question he’d heard more times than he could count? 

He hadn't felt safe at home with Jack, but that was different. Xavier wasn’t him. Xavier wanted what was best for Scott. Best for all of them. He would never hurt them just because he could. And besides. Weren’t they setting sights on a larger goal? 

Didn’t the needs of many outweigh the needs of the few?

Wasn’t that why they’d kept the big secret under wraps for so long in the first place?

“I’m fine.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Scott shook his head again. Because of course any decent counselor would pick up on that. Because it was always easy to lie and hide except for when it wasn’t anymore. 

Why did everything have to be so difficult all the time?

He rolled his shoulders back, hiding a wince when he agitated a pulled muscle from that morning’s session. “He just wants us to be the best we can be.”

“You still haven’t answered the question, Scott.”

Scott sighed and uncrossed his arms, digging his nails into the leg of his khakis. It would leave a hole, but he didn’t care. Pants could be replaced. “I feel safe at home.”

And it wasn’t a lie. 

The Institute was safe. Hell. It was probably one of the safest places on the face of the planet.

It was all the other stuff they got involved in that made things murky. Like the time Sabretooth had gone after Kitty, Rogue, and Evan. Or like how Magneto had brainwashed him and Alex for a minute there. But none of that was Xavier’s fault, right? It had all been because of dumb choices they’d made on their own, right?

Besides, they had it good. Certainly better than the Brotherhood boys, kicked to the curb by Mystique the second they weren’t useful anymore.

The bell rang, a long, digital beep, and Scott grabbed his bag off the floor. “Can’t be late for chem.”

Smith looked up at him like he wanted to press for Scott to stay but thought better of it. “Okay,” he nodded, closing the file shut and placing it back in his locked desk drawer. “Next week?”

“Yeah,” Scott muttered, already halfway out the door.

Like he ever had a choice.


End file.
